What is a root canal treatment?
A root canal treatment is an often straightforward procedure to relieve dental pain and to save your teeth from being extracted. Patients typically need a root canal treatment when there is inflammation or infection caused by bacteria leaking from your mouth to the inside of the tooth through a cavity or and old restoration or a crown. During root canal treatment, an endodontist, which is a dentist specialized in such treatments, carefully disinfect the tooth and places a filling to seal the space giving you another chance to save your tooth.
“Endo” is the Greek word for “inside” and “odont” is Greek for “tooth.” Endodontic treatment treats the inside of the tooth, so a root canal treatment is one type of endodontic treatment.
To understand endodontic treatment, it helps to know something about anatomy. Inside the tooth, under the white enamel and a hard layer called the dentin, there is a soft tissue called the pulp. The pulp contains blood vessels, nerves and connective tissue and creates the surrounding hard tissues of the tooth during its own development.
The pulp extends from the crown of the tooth to the tip of the roots where it connects to the tissues surrounding the root and it’s important during a tooth’s growth and development. However, once a tooth is fully mature it can survive without the pulp, because the tooth continues to be nourished by the tissues surrounding it. A tooth is just a piece of mineral in our mouth, is not alive, is not death.
What is an endodontist or a root canal specialist?
Endodontists are specialists in saving teeth, also known as root canal dentists, committed to helping you maintain your natural smile for a lifetime. Endodontists have completed at three extra years of training beyond dental school. Only just a 3 percent of dentists are endodontists.
Their advanced training, specialized techniques, and state-of-the-art technologies mean you get the highest quality care with the best possible result: saving your natural teeth! Always look for an endodontist who works under the surgical microscope and using the latest technology and materials. They are not usually cheap as training and equipment it is very expensive but think that a tooth has to last all your life.
Why is important to save my tooth?
We have so many teeth because each of them has a different function. At the moment that we start losing teeth the surrounding ones starts assuming the function of the missing one and getting overload which put them under a lot of stress. Think like if in a house we start remove walls, the remaining ones will suffer greater loading and the house will possibly collapse in some point.
As well inflammations and infections caused by bacteria has to resolved as we don’t want our immune system to spend resources fighting a chronic inflammation. A proper root canal treatment performed by a specialist endodontist can resolve this issue.
Is a root canal treatment dangerous?
No, it is not. Although it is a complex and meticulous process, if done correctly and by a specialist there is nothing to be afraid of and most of the time, it’s a very straight forward procedure.
Can I get a dental implant instead of a root canal treatment?
Root canal treatments are performed to maintain and save the tooth in your mouth but if the tooth is not restorable, because it’s in a bad condition, dental implants are great solutions as well.
We have to be very careful choosing the right treatment because, although the life span of implants is great if done properly, they are not forever (as nothing in this life), so as much we delay the extraction of the tooth, the better. A proper diagnosis and an honest discussion with the patient are key to choose the right treatment in each situation.